At a petrol station in the West Bank yesterday, on the side of a road regularly used by Israelis to drive between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, a Palestinian stabbed two Israeli soldiers, killing one of them, before he was shot dead.
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“I know that the situation for Palestinians in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, in Gaza is, at this moment, very dire, that there are extraordinary concerns, obviously, about the violence”, Kerry said, according to the US Department of State.
More than 100 people have been killed in violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in recent months.
“The continuation of the Israeli occupation and its persistence with colonial settlement activities… affirm Israel’s arrogance and intransigence, its violations of worldwide law, its rejection of peace and its adherence instead to the ideology of colonial expansion, subjugation and greed”, Mansour told a special meeting ahead of the global Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, marked annually on November 29. Of them, 57 are said by Israel to be attackers and the rest were killed in clashes with security forces.
“Palestinians venerate terror instead of the value of life, it is time to end the ongoing Palestinian terror against Israel”, he said.
Since the outset of 2014, Parker said that Israeli forces have “increasingly use[d] excessive force against Palestinian children, including live ammunition and physical violence during arrests”.
Kerry condemned the recent spate of attacks on Israelis.
The Palestinians are also frustrated by the failure of decades of peace talks to deliver them an independent state.
During a visit to a West Bank settlement that has been the scene of numerous attacks, he also said work permits would be withdrawn from the families of alleged attackers and said there would be “no limits” on the powers of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.
There were no signs that Kerry made headway in easing tensions during his meetings with Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
According to Israeli Radio, Netanyahu told Kerry during their meeting that Israel had not – and would not – halt construction of Jewish-only settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Netanyahu, who greeted Kerry by calling him a “friend in our common effort to restore stability, security and peace”, said there could be no peace when there is an onslaught of terrorism. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton took unsuccessful stabs at a two-state solution during their final months in office. He said the entire world is witness to militant Islamic terrorism and that Israel is fighting those forces directly and indirectly, by targeting the sources of incitement. It’s the battle of civilization against barbarism. On Tuesday, two soldiers and a Border Police officer were injured when they were rammed by a vehicle driven by a Palestinian.
Hadeel Awwad, 16, died nearly immediately, while her cousin, 14-year-old Norhan Awwad was taken to a Jerusalem hospital, where a she was in a serious condition, with two bullet wounds in her stomach, the Palestinian Maan news agency reported.
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas brought up those matters with Kerry.
“Kerry did not carry any new ideas to solve the current crisis”, one PA official said.
Reportedly, the US was pushing for more meaningful gestures, such as increasing the Palestinians’ responsibilities in the so-called Area C that constitutes around 60% of the West Bank and is under exclusive Israeli control, both security and civilian.
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But in Israel the steady drip, drip, drip of daily terror continues.
